Eisenkrone Academy

Season 3 episode 40 notes

Lloyd finishes the sketch stage of his painting of Reginald, when there’s a sudden knock on the door. Surprised, Lloyd corrects his school uniform and covers up the painting (31 points on the sketch stage).

Naimitsu, respecting Lloyd’s privacy, has finally knocked rather than just sneak in, as is the ninja custom. She asks Lloyd if he has time for special training. Lloyd agrees, and will meet her on the island in the lake in some minutes.

Lloyd heads out to the kitchen, where he has a brief conversation with Cecil and Rei, who are getting ready for Cecil’s telekinesis training.

Lloyd makes a meal for himself, Naimitsu, and anyone who happens to be in the same vague general vicinity. He then heads out. On the way to the island, he spots Erich, who is up late practicing swordfighting. He’s apparently trying to mimic Professor Gottlieb’s style, but he’s just a bit too aggressive and too focused on fighting men, not Storm Beasts.

Lloyd sneaks past Erich and meets Naimitsu out on the island. She has planned to train more breathing exercises, but Lloyd carefully, humbly and politely asks if she could maybe teach him how to kill, instead. Lloyd explains what Gottlieb taught him – only when you know how to kill a man can you make sure not to do it by accident.

Naimitsu agrees. She teaches Lloyd that there are three ways to kill someone: Death by blood, which drains their life-blood and kills the body. Death by bone, which snaps bones, crushes skulls and severs nerves, killing the brain. And finally, death by soul, which are techniques so powerful they kill without needing to break or cut the body. In order to learn these techniques, Lloyd must learn more about the human body.

Lloyd touches Naimitsu’s throat, feeling her pulse and using his mastery of Water to sense her blood, flowing through her body. It’s strangely intimate…

Naimitsu teaches Lloyd about breath, blood, about the spine, and about the heart. But to advance, he must learn about his own body and be more comfortable in it – be aware of his breath and bloodflow. Naimitsu gives Lloyd this as homework.

Lloyd and Naimitsu part company, and Lloyd heads back to the Military History Club.

~

Cecil enters the Military History Club. He runs into Rei, who is looking for Mikhail. Just then, Cecil gets a telepathic message that Mikhail has been spying on Aurora and Nina. Nina delivers Mikhail to the Military History Club, warning him to shut up about anything he saw, he didn’t see anything. Mikhail agrees. Cecil threatens him further, however.

Mikhail says he can’t bear any more of these threats. He’s thinking of quitting the school newspaper and letting the old editor, Dieter von Bülow, take over.

They head into the dojo to begin training. Rei takes Cecil’s teddy bear off his shoulder, and places it on the ground. There’s no reaction from Cecil.

Rei tries another trick. She fetches a book on the logarithmic scale and places it out of Cecil’s reach, telling him about it. Cecil begins to think about the book and how interesting it would be to read it. Rei opens a page, but it’s a little too far away for him to see the text clearly.

Suddenly, without knowing how, having been distracted by trying to read the book, Cecil finds himself holding it. Rei repeats the trick with the food Lloyd cooked earlier. Cecil starts to get the hang of telekinesis – it must be as natural as extending an arm or a leg. If you think about it too hard, it fails.

Suddenly, Heidi enters the room, disguised as a teenage girl. She instantly makes friends with Rei.

Heidi gets a moment alone with Cecil, while a star-struck Rei waits outside. Heidi thanks him for getting her out of that tight spot earlier and promises to help him in whatever way she can. She starts by giving him a cheat sheet for the martial arts tryouts, telling him exactly which katas he needs to display to enter the tournament proper.

Cecil asks Heidi for information on Hanzo. She says that he’s hard to pin down, but during the three days that Lloyd was ‘dead’, he was wistfully staring up at the lonely tower above the Dueling Club. Heidi doesn’t know why.

Cecil also asks Heidi if she could find out more about the painting that was sent to Aurora. She obliges, promising to return with intel.

Heidi leaves, and Cecil finishes training with Rei. Thereafter, he goes to his room, to wait for Naimitsu to return.

Naimitsu comes back, and Cecil asks her if she knows anything about the tower above the Dueling Club. She is vague and mysterious about it, but Cecil deduces she has some connection to it.

Cecil casually mentions how Ryoko was mercilessly bullied by Anita for a year, and voices concerns that she might be bullied again. Naimitsu is shocked and horrified – Ryoko hid this fact in all her letters to her mother, and Naimitsu had no idea such bullying had been going on!

Cecil pleads with Naimitsu, telling her that Anita is their friend now, and won’t bully Ryoko any further. Naimitsu understands… but still sets off to teach those kids a lesson.

Cecil, panicked, contacts Ryoko via the Psitanium badge. She wakes up, horrified and embarrassed by how Cecil shared all those awful stories with her mom. Worse, she’s worried what Naimitsu might do next – calling mom isn’t exactly a way to get the assassins’ respect.

Ryoko hurries out of bed to find her mother and stop her before she goes around lecturing all the assassins, possibly also disciplining them. She tells Cecil not to get involved – he’s already done enough. Cecil shrugs, and goes to bed.

~

Lloyd, returning after training, meets Mashiro in the Military History Club. She’s deep in contemplation. Shigeru has pulled some strings and given her not only an invitation to the Dueling Club – but Parsifal has even sent her a red rose, suggesting an invitation to be his sweetheart.

Mashiro is worried about her future. As a disowned daughter of a powerful Nipponese clan, she has very poor future prospects – and membership in the Dueling Club would certainly help, with all the powerful political alliances there.

Lloyd and Mashiro discuss her safety, and how the Tokugawa might still try to kidnap her to get at Shigeru, the heir to all the Kyoka lands. Ultimately, Lloyd convinces her that joining the Dueling Club would mean accepting what they stand for. Mashiro agrees, and burns the letter – heading to bed.

Lloyd, as he enters his room, meets Hattori Hanzo, who is lurking in his room in the shadows. Hanzo awkwardly asks how Naimitsu has been lately. Lloyd says that she feels better, and says he could ask her himself. Hanzo seems awkward about it.

Hanzo leaves, and Lloyd goes to bed.

~

Cecil and Lloyd wake up, awoken by their respective maids. Wilhelmina promises to try and shape up, to help Cecil wake on time, and she’s even memorized his schedule (sort of). His Weapons Mastery uniform is ready.

As Lloyd and Cecil go out to the dining room, they find Mashiro is in a spirited, cheery mood. She, along with Luke, outlines all they must do to help Lloyd win the Student Council Elections, detailing the arcane and complex rules by which all the contests for the School Festival work. Cecil obliquely mentions that they should practice katas for the martial arts tournament, for no particular reasons… (Cecil is a big cheater).

Lloyd is happy to see that Mashiro has made up her mind, determined to help the Military History Club.

Cecil tries to contact Ryoko to see how she’s doing – but the badge just returns weird static. Concerned, he enlists André to help him find the badge. André crawls out from under the table, where he’s been sleeping. He agrees to help, but first he needs to talk to Lloyd and Cecil. He helps them take a shortcut to class in the meantime.

Lloyd apologizes to André for sending away Mr. Fried. André says it’s an important lesson – he had never quite realized that being a Pathfinder means you can do some things nobody else can do, and that sometimes means you might have to do them. André is grateful to have learned this.

André then addresses Cecil, saying he’s very upset with Cecil for having a hand in Keanu being so badly hurt, but he forgives him.

As the three arrive to class, André disappears to go find Ryoko’s badge.

Thanks to Andrés shortcut, they arrive early. Gottlieb is carrying a basket of heavy chains, and being admired/interviewed by Erich von Donner, who is clearly a huge fan of Gottlieb. He calls him “General” and asks him if he feels comfortable having so many Britannians around. He’s concerned about Bert, especially.

Gottlieb mostly ignores Erich, but permits him to watch the lesson with the second years. Erich is curious about their fighting styles.

The rest of the class arrives. Erich asks their permission to watch as well, and briefly introduces himself, explaining that he’s been away at Elsinore alongside his friends, fighting the Storm Beasts of the Kattegat.

Gottlieb begins the training. The students have their feet chained together, to negate any fancy footwork. In the middle of the lessons, however, André arrives, carrying a monkey, which is carrying Ryoko’s badge.

Cecil thanks him and informs him to return the monkey to the responsible authorities. André hands him the monkey. It had escaped from Mr. Fried’s monkey cage (assembled a few weeks prior, after Ryu accidentally let loose 10 Storm Monkeys) and is thus the janitor’s responsibility.

Cecil excuses himself from class to go deal with janitorial business. He and André head to the monkey cage, where they find Ryoko. She was caught by angry bullies trying to catch up with her mother, fell into a trap, and was thrown in the cage – she’s been here all night.

Cecil rescues Ryoko, then pulls up his sleeves and enters the cage to get her possessions back – the monkeys have stolen everything they could, including her bunny slippers.

After an intense round of monkey-wrestling, Cecil re-emerges triumphant, his teddy bear still telekinetically perched on his shoulder despite the monkeys’ best efforts to steal it.

Ryoko thanks Cecil for the help. She still has to find her mother, though!

André guides Cecil and Ryoko to Naimitsu. On the way, they run into Heidi in the laundry room, where André gets briefly distracted by the amazing X-76K laundry vat.

Naimitsu is watching over Akane as she gets out of class. Cecil and Ryoko catch up with them. Cecil has a short conversation with Akane while Ryoko tries to figure out how much damage her mother has done. Turns out Naimitsu has sprung pranks on all the people who tormented her poor little girl, giving them a taste of their own medicine. It isn’t nearly as bad as the humiliating torments they inflicted on Ryoko, but it should teach them a lesson.

Ryoko is horrified at this escalation, particularly since Naimitsu’s primary target was Rose, Violet and Snowdrop. Cecil sort of forgot to mention that they’ve since apologized to Ryoko and made friends with her.

Ryoko suddenly realizes she’s running late for her shift watching Mashiro! She and Rei are still Mashiro’s maid-bodyguards, by order of Yvain. Cecil asks Naimitsu if she can help, but in light of recent events she doesn’t want to leave Akane unguarded.

Cecil takes it upon himself to help Ryoko. He picks her up, and leaps out the window, headed for her dorm room and her maid uniform. André waves after them, happily wishing them a pleasant journey across the school.

~

Lloyd wraps up Weapons Mastery Class. Gottlieb tells him to bring a shield for next week’s Special Training, which catches Erichs’s attention – clearly, Lloyd is favored by the Great General.

Erich takes Lloyd aside to congratulate him on General Gottlieb’s tutelage. Lloyd points out that it’s Professor Gottlieb. Erich then clears his throat – he has something a little awkward to say.

Erich informs Lloyd that in light of the current political climate, it would be best if he stepped down from the Student Council Elections. Parsifal is clearly the best candidate, who would bring unity. Lloyd politely objects, saying he couldn’t let down his friends like that.

Erich implies that Lloyd has questioned the Kaiser, and that – while he doesn’t want to question his loyalty to the nation – he’s kinda questioning his loyalty to the nation. He reminds Lloyd that he should be grateful to have gotten the chance to grow up in great Teutonia, and not on the degenerate islands to the west.

Erich leaves, to head for his next class. Lloyd does likewise.

Lloyd heads over to Spymastery class, where Professor von Zweibrücken has taken over from Mr. Fried, who had to hastily leave. She’s confident he left lesson plans for her to follow, however. This is the first class with the first and second year students together.

A disappointed von Zweibrücken sends out the students in pairs of two, one older and one younger. Lloyd gets self-selected by Haruhi, who tackles him. She’s learned a little Teutonian now, and can communicate with him.

The precocious seven-year old ninja speeds off at a lightning pace, and Lloyd can only barely keep up. They’re on the hiding team, and Haruhi (mostly with vigorous gesturing) informs Lloyd of a great hiding place she knows.

Haruhi throws herself into a mysterious vent. Lloyd jumps after her, struggling to keep up with the rapidly crawling, and rapidly disappearing, Haruhi.

Horrified, Lloyd finds that the vent leads over the locker rooms for the martial arts dojo. Below him, just out of sight, some of his female friends are undressing. And the grates above the locker room look very flimsy, enough to support Haruhi’s weight but maybe not his.

Lloyd closes his eyes, and summons his tremendous power as Sturmmeister, Master of all Four Elements and Heir to Excalibur, to… make an opaque bobsled track out of ice. He then shoots himself down the vent, completely unnoticed below. Speeding through the vents, able to avoid an incident, he keeps up with Haruhi… who’s just reached a ladder, out of the vents.

Lloyd hears the clunking ticking of the school clocktower, above him. He quickly climbs after Haruhi, who’s already disappeared in the darkness above.

Haruhi merrily skips into the massive dangerous cogs of the clocktower, carelessly skipping between deadly machinery, laughing. Lloyd tells her to stay where she is, and amazingly, succeeds. Haruhi hangs on to a large chain, waiting for him to catch up.

Lloyd navigates the clockwork with some difficulty, reaching Haruhi and using the massive chains going up and down to ascend to the top of the tower, where he can see an exit…

Lloyd meets Agnes and Janos at the top of the tower – Janos is asking to see the interior of the clocktower, as he’s interested in engineering. As Lloyd and Haruhi pop out of the interior, though, Agnes says it’ll have to be some other day – she needs to make sure none of the precious machinery was damaged.

Janos introduces himself to Lloyd, and offers to help him down from the tower. He uses his gravity-manipulation to allow himself and Lloyd to walk on the wall, casually strolling down while Lloyd carries Haruhi. It’s a long way down.

Janos discusses Erich with Lloyd, revealing that he thinks Erich is overzealous and too nationalistic, but that he trusts his leadership nonetheless. He hopes they can make friends. He also analyzes Lloyd casually, as he is wont to do.

They reach the bottom without Lloyd falling to his death, as Janos hinted might have happened. With that, he says goodbye, and Lloyd goes back to report in to Professor von Zweibrücken as class is now over.

~

Cecil reaches Ryoko’s room by jumping over the rooftops, but finds to his dismay that the window is closed, and he can’t pick it open. He tries to work the lock with his bare hands, but to no avail. He asks Ryoko to do the same, and a nervous Ryoko – suspended high above ground by Cecil – dares only try. She can’t get it open either.

Cecil glances around for an open window and spots one. He enters it just in time to see Juan de Cervantes, in the process of opening a large present. Ryoko cries out – it’s one of Naimitsu’s revenge-pranks!

Cecil enters, carefully taking the present from Juan, and throwing it out the window. It explodes into a burst of spear-wielding tiny flying monkies, that disperse to the wind. Naimitsu knows some advanced pranks, due to her years of marriage to a ninja clown.

Juan is very confused by all this, but lets Cecil and Ryoko leave through his door. They enter the corridor and find that Ryoko’s room hasn’t been left alone by the bullies either. Yvain’s thugs have vandalized her maid uniform, leaving it in tatters. On top of this, there’s a Storm Langoustine inside it.

Ryoko withdraws the langoustine, finding that it’s been marked by Professor Ryder – she’s qualified for the Storm Beast hunting contest by catching it. The langoustines having spread all over school at this point, it’s probably how the teachers encourage catching them. This is a small consolidation to her ruined costume.

Cecil finds that the assassins have furthermore left an alchemical trap, which he disarms.

Ryoko is desperate – she has to wear a maids’ uniform when watching over Mashiro, because of the weird and mostly made-up rules the Assassins’ Club put on her after her failure to save Mashiro from the Strix.

Cecil summons Wilhelmina. She lends her uniform to Ryoko, borrowing Ryoko’s ninja outfit instead. She then takes Ryoko’s vandalized uniform and hurries off to repair it.

Cecil picks up Ryoko and leaps to the place where he knows he’ll find Mashiro… Martial Arts Class, which is also his next class after Weapons Mastery. He’s already running late.

Cecil lands in Martial Arts class without having time to change. Fortunately, it’s a lesson on wrestling, so being shirtless is acceptable. Sanchez and Ivan are wrestling, and Ivan is mightily impressed with Sanchez’ technique.

Cecil hurries to get his shirt off. Ivan turns to him with displeasure. It’s time to practice the wrestling techniques Ivan and Sanchez have just demonstrated. Ivan teams him up with Tomoe, watching closely.

Cecil reads Tomoe’s mind, obtaining the right idea of the techniques from there. Ivan, remarkably, does not punish him for this. Perhaps his discrimination of mindbenders has lessened…

Tomoe barrels into Cecil, throwing him to the ground. Unfortunately, in a fit of bad luck, their struggle causes Tomoe’s belt to come loose, and her ghi starts to come open. Cecil frantically scrambles to try to retrieve her belt, but Tomoe keeps stopping him in an attempt to pin him to the ground.

Cecil grabs Tomoe’s belt and hands it to her. She immediately uses it to tie him up, winning the match. Ivan gives him low grades and a penalty for being late to class, but opts not to punish or humiliate him any further. This is a big change over how Ivan used to treat Cecil.

~

Lloyd, leaving Spymastery class, meets Gabriel in a corridor. Gabriel invites him to lunch in a very popular restaurant, or so he’s heard. Gabriel seems very nervous, checking to see that they aren’t followed or watched, as he takes Lloyd to one of the most remote corners of the school…

Lloyd finds that André apparently works as a waiter in a suspiciously improvised-looking lunch restaurant consisting of a stove, a single table, and two chairs, all set out in a corridor. It serves only one dish: Poisson du fromage, a slightly under- and overcooked fish with melted cheese on it.

Gabriel sits Lloyd down and, checking again that nobody but the three of them are there, nervously explains that Parsifal has been trying to bribe him to spy on Britannians in the school – giving Parsifal’s bullies information on when they are alone, or embarrassing secrets that might be used against them. He knows a few other students have been asked to do this as well – some are even spying on Lloyd.

It’s an open secret that Gabriel is the school’s biggest rumormonger, but he’s not comfortable being a spy. But he’s afraid of what Parsifal might do if he refuses. Therefore, after asking Lloyd’s advice, he informs him he will take the money, but provide Parsifal with false information – effectively acting as a counter-spy. He nervously admits that he’s rather good at this, and hints that he was involved with the Resistance in Lothringen… even that his Storm Power might be related to information. He doesn’t like to admit that he has it, and doesn’t reveal what exactly it is.

Lloyd thanks Gabriel and André for a lovely lunch, and leaves to meet with his friends…